


Unwelcome Reunion

by protectoroffaeries



Series: High School AU Stories [8]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: F/M, M/M, read the warning in the notes please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:00:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7637527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dexter's father gets out of prison far too early.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unwelcome Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic has strong sexual themes (though no actual sex scenes) and very foul language. Reader discretion is advised.
> 
> Also ~ this story takes place in the same verse as the HS AU, although obviously long after high school. If you're a fan of How (Not) to Grow Up, you might be interested to know that there will be a sequel from Erskine's perspective called Daddy Issues (if You're Unlucky). I'll probably start posting it in September. 
> 
> Anyway, on with the fic!

WEALTHY COMPANY OWNER RELEASED FROM PRISON

On Saturday, Alaister Vex, the owner of VexOil, was released from prison. He was sentenced to twenty years for various accounts of abuse and fraud. He was also accused of drug dealing and murder, but these charges were dropped and subsequently never applied to the sentencing. 

Vex, 51, was released over a decade earlier than expected due to “good behavior.” It seems likely that this good behavior included excessive donations to the state, although sources that claim such have not yet been confirmed. Vex has a wife, Esmeralda Vex (age 48), and a son, Dexter Vex (age 25) (both pictured right), who each brought up an abuse charge upon the newly released Alaister Vex. It is not known whether either of them have opted for a restraining order against their former abuser. (Story continued on pg 3)

***

Dexter dropped the paper on the little table in his flat. He would get a restraining order if he thought his father was going to cause any problems, but he expected to be ignored. That's what he'd done every time Dexter had visited him in prison. 

“What’re you looking at?” asked a voice behind him, and then strong arms wrapped around his waist. Saracen set his head on Dexter’s shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. He was quite affectionate. Dexter liked that about him. 

“Just the newspaper. It has an article about how my father was released early on Saturday,” explained Dexter. He felt Saracen stiffen against his back. His boyfriend was more worried about his father's return than Dexter was. 

“You sure he won't, you know, come by?” Saracen asked, the nerves evident in his voice. 

“I doubt it,” Dexter said easily. “He doesn't care about me. He hasn't since I testified against him.”

“He's still your father-” started Saracen. He'd always had a hard time wrapping his head around Dexter’s issues with his father, as Saracen and his own father were very close. 

Dexter turned around in Saracen’s arms, so that they were facing each other. “Don't worry about my father. There are better ways for you to spend your time.”

A devilish grin spread across Saracen’s face. “Oh, are there? What do you have in mind?”

Dexter leaned in close so that he could whisper in Saracen’s ear. “You could take me to our room…” he murmured, low and suggestive. 

“Yeah?”

“...and we could finish folding the laundry,” finished Dexter. Saracen smacked him on the chest, but Dexter was laughing so hard that he didn't feel the sting of it. 

“You ass,” Saracen grumbled. “I thought I was going to get laid.”

“If you finish folding the laundry, maybe you will.”  
Saracen sighed dramatically. “You know what, I bet Hopeless and Larrikin don't have to put up with this. I bet Erskine and Anton screw them all the time, regardless of whether or not the laundry is folded.”

“What makes you think Hopeless and Larrikin are bottoms?”

“Oh please, it's obvious.”

“Is it obvious with us?”

Saracen shook his head. “People think we switch.”

“Should we?”

Now it was Saracen’s turn to laugh. “Do you really want to, Dex? You know I'm in charge either way,” he said, although the second sentence came out more like a challenge. 

“I don't need your cock up my ass to know you're in charge, Saracen,” Dexter said. “And for the record, I doubt Anton is dictated by Larrikin’s sexual whims.”

“Hmm, I suppose you're right. But Ghastly - there's a guy who gets laid all the time,” Saracen said. 

“Tanith does keep him busy,” agreed Dexter. “And Mala’s the same with Skulduggery. Those women are wild.”

“Why can't you keep me busy? Why can't you be wild?” Saracen demanded.

“After you finish the laundry.” 

“Is that a promise?”

Dexter sighed heavily, like he wasn't looking forward to having sex with his boyfriend, which was the opposite of true. “Yes, it's a promise.”

Saracen’s grin grew, and he let go of Dexter to head down the hall and to their room. He'd have the clothes put away in record speed. 

That was how Dexter directed conversation away from his father the first time, but he knew there would be more to come.

***

Of course, it was Larrikin who brought it up again. They were at lunch - “they” being Dexter, Saracen, Larrikin, Anton, Hopeless, Erskine, Ghastly, and Tanith. High school friends weren't exactly forever friends, but they'd all stuck together since sophomore year. None of them had gone to college out of the state, and they all lived in the same city now, so Dexter accepted the fact that he would always and forever be friends with the people who remembered his rainbow hair phase. 

That was something no one was allowed to bring up.

“Where is Skul?” Ghastly asked as he sat down. He and Tanith were always the last to show, due to Tanith’s casual disregard for punctuality. 

“More like where is Mala,” she grumbled, “I hate it when she leaves me with this sausage fest.”

“You love this sauage fest,” Saracen said, smiling at Tanith. She tried to keep up her scowl, but couldn't manage it. She’d been friends with Saracen since they were in first grade - about as long as Dexter had been friends with Saracen - and the two of them were still close. 

Ghastly frowned. He hadn't quite gotten over the fact that Saracen and Tanith dated. Dexter could relate to the discomfort, but he'd gotten over it himself years ago. 

“Gamine’s in town this week,” Dexter said, answering Ghastly’s question. “She's staying at Skul and Mal’s house.”

Tanith laughed. “I'm sure Mala loves that. Six months pregnant and dealing with her sister-in-law.”

“Pfft, please. Gamine is an angel. Now if Aunt Angela were there…”

“Speaking of Dexter’s dysfunctional family,” Larrikin said, looking far too gleeful. Anton smacked him on the back of the head and gave him a look. 

“Ow. Anton, that was not very nice.”

“Neither was your comment.”

Larrikin crossed his arms over his chest and stuck his lower lip out in a pout. “Fine. Dex, I was going to ask you about your dad, but Anton doesn't think it's appropriate.”

“Your approach was inappropriate.”

“Your face is inappropriate,” Larrikin grumbled. It sounded like he was getting his insults from fourteen year old sister. 

Anton raised an eyebrow. “You love my face.”

“This is true,” hummed Larrikin, and then he turned his attention back to Dexter. “So, has the old man given you any trouble yet?”

“No. Haven't seen him,” Dexter admitted shortly.

“It's been what, two weeks since he got out? I thought he'd come around,” said Larrikin.

“Maybe he got the message that Dexter doesn't want him in his life,” Hopeless commented quietly. He stroked Erskine’s arm, and Dexter had the sense that he was really thinking about Erskine’s father, who was also terrible at being a father, only in different ways. 

Tanith waved a hand. “Fathers are entirely overrated. Mine doesn't like Ghastly - can you believe it?” She threw her arms around her husband. “Everyone loves Ghastly!”

“Tanith has a point,” Anton said, and then he quickly amended, “not about everyone loving Ghastly-”

“You bastard,” Ghastly grumbled. Anton ignored him. 

“-but about fathers being overrated.” Dexter belatedly recalled that Anton’s father was in prison. He took the cake for the worst father of the group - Jacob Shudder was a serial killer, and he'd killed Anton’s mother out of the blue one day. Tried to kill two of Anton’s sisters - which was why Lola Shudder was mute. Anton never talked about it, but at least he talked at all. 

“I guess that's true,” Larrikin agreed.”I never had one, and I turned out fine.”

“That's debatable,” Saracen and Dexter said in unison. They grinned at each other. 

Saracen didn't have an issue with his father. Draco Rue was a great man - and an even better father. Dexter was jealous of their close relationship sometimes. He'd never been close to either of his parents - he thought his mother would always feel guilty for not doing something about his father sooner. 

Hopeless, Ghastly, and Skulduggery all got on with their fathers fairly well, too, although Skulduggery had always relied more on Riagán to be his father figure. Riagán, of course, took on that role with pride, even during the Serpine incident. 

“Well, I hope he continues to leave you alone,” Larrikin said, bring the conversation back around to Dexter’s father and killing it all in one blow. 

The conversation moved on to whether or not Tanith and Ghastly were going to have a baby now that they were a true married couple. Larrikin started to whine to Anton that he wanted a baby, and Anton told him, very matter of factly, that he was a baby. 

***

A knock at the door interrupted Dexter and Saracen’s evening two nights later. It was disappointing, really, because they were both naked and rather in the middle of something. But the knocking was insistent, so an irate Dexter snatched a pair of pants off the floor and pulled them on. 

“Hurry back,” Saracen sing-songed.

Dexter hurried down the hall and wrenched the door open. “Who the fuck-”

“Only your favorite cousin,” Gamine Pleasant said with a grin. “I was on my way out of town and thought I'd - Dexter, where is your shirt?”

“On my bedroom floor,” Dexter growled.

Gamine’s face turned red as she realized what'd she interrupted. Good. Dexter thought she deserved to be a little embarrassed. “I didn't mean to interrupt.”

She stepped into the flat anyway and leaned around Dexter to shout, “Sorry, Saracen!”

A muffled response came from the bedroom: “It's alright, Gamine!”

“It's not alright,” Dexter disagreed, “and why are you only apologizing to him?”

Gamine shrugged. “I like him better.”

Saracen appeared a minute later, looking slightly disheveled but fully dressed. He handed Dexter his shirt, and Dexter pulled it on. 

“Would you like to come in, Gamine?” Saracen asked. 

Gamine opened her mouth, presumably to say ‘no’, but Saracen added, “You've already cockblocked me, so you might as well come in and have a beer.”

Gamine hesitated, but eventually she decided to come in. Dexter could swear that his cousin had no shame. And Saracen wasn't going to hear the end of it for inviting her in. He didn't care if it was polite - Dexter wasn't a particularly polite man. 

Saracen led the way into the kitchen, where Gamine and Dexter sat down at the table. Saracen rummaged around in the fridge and produced three cheap beers. He popped them open and passed the bottles out to Gamine and Dexter. 

“What brings you here, Gamine?” Saracen asked.

“Oh, you know, I was in town, helping Mala get things ready for the baby. She looks like she's about to explode - and she eats the weirdest things. But anyway, I thought I'd drop by before I left to see you two. I, er, am really sorry about interrupting,” she said.

Saracen waved off her apology. “So there's no other reason you're here, then?” he questioned, and it suddenly hit Dexter that Saracen thought she'd come around to talk to Dexter about his father.

“Well, Aunt Esmeralda said,” she began, glancing sideways at Dexter when she spoke his mother’s name, “that I should warn Dexter that, um, his father had already dropped in on her and that we was planning to drop in on you guys, too.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” Dexter groaned. 

“I'm sorry. So sorry,” Gamine squeaked. She stood up abruptly, her chair scratching against the floor as she did so. “I should go. I'm so sorry, Dexter, she thought it'd be better if you heard it from me…”

“Gamine,” Saracen interrupted gently, and Dexter’s distressed cousin paused. “Perhaps it is best if you leave.”

“Right,” she mumbled, and she snatched her purse off the table and was out the front door in an instant. 

“C’mon, babe,” Saracen murmured, but Dexter didn't want to hear comforting whispers. He wanted his father out of his life - permanently. 

“Saracen-” started Dexter. 

“We were going to have sex,” Saracen said, “we should still do that. C’mon. Sex makes everything better.” He gave a crooked smile, and that was what really made Dexter feel a little lighter.

“We don't need to have sex.”

“You're right, but I want to have sex,” Saracen said, a mischievous gleam in his eye.

Dexter felt the corners of his mouth lifting up without his permission. “Oh, alright.”

“Don't sound so put out.”

Dexter stood up from his chair and pulled his shirt over his head, and Saracen crossed the kitchen to meet him for a kiss as soon as the shirt was on the floor. 

Dexter worked Saracen’s shirt up and, breaking the kiss for just a moment, yanked the offending garment off. 

“We have a bedroom, you know,” Saracen panted when they broke to breathe. 

“What, you don't want to just do it on the table?”

“I think we'd break the table and honestly, I don't fancy buying a new one.” 

Dexter frowned. “We've done it on a table before.”

“We were eighteen,” Saracen pointed out. “And Larrikin’s table is sturdier than this one.”

“His sister was so pissed.”

“Yes, she was.”

Saracen beamed at the memory and pulled Dexter in for another kiss. 

***

Saracen snored, but that was fine. He'd always snored and eventually, Dexter had become accustomed to it. He even found it soothing at times. 

He was snoring now. Saracen had a tendency to fall asleep directly after sex. It was a tiring activity, but then Dexter never found sleep so easily. So he would just listen to Saracen snore... until sleep decided to take him, too. 

A heavy knock on the front door caused Dexter to sit up in bed. He glanced over at the clock, which told him that it was well past midnight. He climbed out of bed, unworried about waking Saracen. Saracen could sleep through anything, for better or worse. 

Dexter pulled on his pants again and went for the door. He thought perhaps it was Gamine looking for a place to spend the night, so as he opened the door, he said, “You can sleep on the couch-”

But it wasn't Gamine. It was his father in a finely tailored suit. And here Dexter didn't even have a shirt on. 

“Dexter,” Alaister Vex said, a cold look on his face. “Aren't you going to invite your father in?”

“No.” When his father spoke, it'd snapped Dexter out of whatever trance seeing the man had put him in. 

“Whyever not? I thought I instilled some manners into you, boy,” his father growled, sounding angry and disappointed. 

“I'm not your boy, and I don't have to let you into my home.”

Dexter’s father snorted, cruelly amused. “You call this dingy little thing your home?” 

“I pay for it, and I live here, so yeah, I'd say it's rather appropriate for me to call it home,” Dexter shot back.

“You pay for it, do you? And what is it you do for a living? Wait tables? Collect trash?”

“Not that there's anything wrong with being a waiter or a garbage collector, but I work in a bakery,” Dexter snapped. He hated the way his father insulted professions that he absolutely depended on - that most people depended on. 

“I never pegged you for a baker, son.”

“You never pegged me for anything, father,” he spat. “You just planned my life without once consulting me.”

“Lucky, then, for little Dexter, that I was arrested, hmmm?” his father taunted coldly. “I suppose you'd hoped you wouldn't have to see me for another ten years.”

Dexter grit his teeth. That was exactly what he'd been hoping for. 

“By then, surely you'd have a real house and real job and a cute little wife and your own children -to whom, of course, you'd be a much better father than I was to you. You could've showed me, Dexter, that you didn't need me, if only you had more time, righr?”

Dexter shook his head, unwilling to back down under his father's sharp words and even sharper stare. “I don't need a house, a wife, or kids to not need you. I haven't needed you a day in my life, and I certainly don't need you now, you malicious bastard.”

“Shut your mouth, you ungrateful brat!”

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Dexter shouted with just as much venom. He tried to slam the door in his father's face, but his father threw his weight on the door to keep it open.

“You don't get to slam a door in my face, Dexter Vex. You're still my son, no matter what lies your bitch of a mother and her shameless family have filled your head with!”

“Don't talk about my mother like that!”

“She's a cunt!”

“Shut the fuck up!” 

“Your mother,” Dexter’s father spat, specks of spittle flying from his mouth, “is a cunt!” He seemed to take pleasure in finally getting Dexter to react. 

Dexter lunged for his father, but before he could make contact, Saracen was somehow between them. He shoved Dexter away from his father, and Dexter fell back against the wall. 

“Who the hell are you?” Dexter’s father demanded. Then his eyes widened a fraction. “Your is little friend with the girly name. Sammy?”

“Saracen,” corrected Saracen. “I'm his boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend...?” A new spark of rage ignited in his eyes. “You turned my son into a faggot?”

Dexter hauled himself off the wall, ready to take another swing at his father, but Saracen blocked his path. Very calmly, to Saracen’s credit, he said, “This apartment building is private. Get out, or I'll call the police and have you arrested for trepassing.”

“You can't-”

“I absolutely can. How would it look for you, Alaister, thrown back in jail less than a month after your release? I would guess that it'd be harder to buy your way out a second time. The “good behavior” excuse only stretches so far.”

“How dare you-”

“Goodnight, Alaister. Don't come back.” Dexter’s father was too shocked to stop him when Saracen slammed the door shut.

“Are you okay?” he asked Dexter, who was still against the wall, panting.

“That was hot,” Dexter admitted honestly, and Saracen laughed. 

“I hope you mean that I was hot.”

“You kicked his ass - verbally.”

Saracen nodded. “Because if you'd kicked his ass physically, he would've had you arrested. He was goading you into hitting him.”

“He was almost successful,” Dexter muttered darkly.

“Don't let him get to you, Dex,” Saracen said. “Come back to bed, and I'll blow you.”

“You always know how to make me feel better.”

Saracen just smiled and grabbed Dexter’s wrist, pulling him back to their room to fulfill his promise.


End file.
